Server Naming Conventions
It has been a bit too long since the last post and I hope to make up for it with the particularly “startup” taste of this one.
When we got started as a company we didn’t have a lot of hardware of the server variety to worry about. We had a production web/application server, production database server, a corporate mail server, and a couple development servers meant to mimic the production environment. Such a small number of machines is easy to keep track of and there was no need to create names more unique that “prodweb”, “proddb”, etc.
Though we still couldn’t fill a full rack with equipment the machine count did get large enough that a better naming scheme was necessary. After a fairly short brainstorming session we unanimously agreed that beer provided the best namespace for new machines. With that decision made we refined the naming scheme by assigning regions to machine roles. A few samples:
- Database servers, generally the strongest and best, are named after Belgian beers
- Web/Application servers are named after English beers
- Servers for QA purposes are named after cheap American Macrobrews
The naming scheme alone is pretty excellent but a few weeks later we came up with a further refinement of the system. Thus far our servers have come from Dell. The price combined with the availability of 2 - 4 hr hardware replacement (Silver and Gold support packages can generally be negotiated to low or no cost) make up most of that decision. The reason the vendor matters here is that Dell servers ship with sharp looking gray bezels that snap into the front of the servers and cover the inputs and drives to give a rack of machines a consistent, clean look. Here is a picture of one if you are unfamiliar with Dell servers.
The Dell logo in their center is almost exactly the same diameter as the cap from a beer bottle. The reason this is wonderful should be obvious. We realized we could remove the Dell logos, replace them with the beer bottle caps matching individual server names and have unique, physical identifiers for our servers. Here is the approach:
Step 1: Remove the Dell logo
The logos are glued to a ring of rubber-like material that itself is glued to the bezel. The best way to remove them is to flip the bezel over and insert a screw driver through the larger of the slots behind the logo. Pressing firmly here will separate the logo partly from the rubber. Next flip the bezel back over and use the screw driver to pry the logo away fully. It doesn’t matter if the rubber ring remains or not as the bottle caps will fit over it fine.
Step2: Attach the bottle cap
The best adhesive for attaching a bottle cap appears to be rubber cement. It avoids taking the stronger step of using super glue and dries clear. You will need to apply a solid layer and let the cap sit in place for several minutes before picking up the bezel and placing it back on the machine.
Here are a few of our servers now:
It is possible that a similar naming and labeling scheme wouldn’t be allowed in some environments but we’ve enjoyed it significantly enough that we couldn’t hoard the idea. You could take the same approach with most of Dell’s equipment but the logos placed on some of their products are larger and the bottle cap can look out of place.